


Divided We Fall

by emmram



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Gen, musketeersfest 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-02-06
Packaged: 2018-05-13 18:43:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5713051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmram/pseuds/emmram
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of ficlets/meta pieces I wrote for the 2015 edition of the musketeersfest on tumblr. </p><p>(2014 edition <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/3069740/chapters/6661451">here</a>.)</p><p>1 - The Four Musketeers<br/>2 - Favourite s2 location<br/>3 - Favourite s2 episode<br/>4 - OMG moment<br/>5 - Favourite guest character<br/>6 - Series Two - Missing scenes for every episode.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for s2 spoilers. A couple of these pieces are more meta than ficlets--I hope that's ok, and that you enjoy. :) These are also available on my [tumblr](http://why-this-kolaveri-machi.tumblr.com) with corresponding screencaps.

_The Four Musketeers/Main Characters_

You are—

You are Athos. You are truth and reason hanging from a frail thread over an ocean of pain; you are the last, bracing gasp of air before that thread is cut. You are a well of oil that’s caught fire underground—your hell is personal, and your hell is eternal; anybody who walks over you is bound to be burned over time. You are also the lips of a wound that come together without anybody noticing—you are both the impossibly intricate, vigorous process of healing and the thin, obscure scar that’s left afterwards. You are the executioner who cannot bear to look; the soldier who straddles enemy lines; the little, primal creature at the back of the mind that cannot let go, cannot let go, cannot let go. You are a man who seeks to destroy himself to find salvation, but not only do you emerge unscathed, you have found love.

You are Porthos. You are the last loop of golden thread pulled tight through weathered cloth and the tapestry that it holds together. You are the beating heart inside of every dark alley that is looked over, and you are the promise of light at the end. You swell and soar with every beat of a marching army; you are the curve of fingertips as they curl proudly over soldiers’ crests. You are also the bitter taste of gravedirt and enemy blood and the terrible, screaming realisation of how truly insignificant each of us are in the grand design of the universe. You are every realised dream and every shattered illusion; you weave histories with silk and gossamer and plug in the holes with bits of broken glass and spit-slicked pieces of metal. You set out to find truth, to find belonging, to find a tapestry that you didn’t have to fill yourself with one eye closed and a fertile imagination, but you only find yourself, and that is enough.

You are Aramis. You are on a precipice—you are both the small moment of shuddering hesitation before the fall and the fall itself. You are amber stains on pockmarked wood and sunlight streaming through filmy cloth and the warm, empty curve of a recently abandoned bed. You are the crystal clear image in a looking glass and none of the universe that surrounds it; you are the very last speck of golden grain growing stubbornly on a field razed over and over again. You are the shadow that flickers at the corner of the eye and every glib lie that erases it out of existence; you are a single toe dragged slowly along the surface of still water, the ripple that rolls lazily outwards, and the life that teems incongruously beneath. You have created something beautiful, but you have destroyed so much more, and at the end, you are left with the merest flicker of redemption. You jump.

You are d’Artagnan. You are a warm cloak smelling of wine and stale smoke draped across too-thin shoulders; you are the cowl that flutters proudly in the wind and the hem that drags along in the mud. You are the final tentative inch of a door that’s being opened slowly, and you are joy and rage and sorrow that somehow grows and swells and festers at the same time. You are sweet hope left outside in the sun too long that you cloy; you are the final step before a blind turn and the terrible inchoate fear that flutters to the surface at the same time. You are exactly ninety-seven strokes of a sword that slices through thin air; you are twenty-three rotting corpses between here and Paris. You are a loud, proud call to war and the shaking hands that deliver them. You are the answer to a riddle nobody knows—yet you bring comfort by your mere existence. You sought glory and love, flirted with disgrace and ignominy, and then glory and love found you—a much humbler man.

–you are—


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day Two: Favourite s2 location

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Less fic and more meta, but still! Pictures!

 

-

s2 utilised a number of striking and picturesque locations, but one of the images that stayed with me the longest is this: the Musketeers’ garrison, empty and bathed in golden evening sunlight. It’s true that we spent a lot of time in the garrison in s1, so it’s not exactly something _new_ , but for me one of the most important themes of s2 is looking back at the things you’d taken for granted and peeling back the layers—and finding that the moment of truth is a hollow and terrible thing. Until this point, we’ve seen the garrison in harsh blues and whites, but these long, golden shots give a sense of space and enormity and a sort of melancholy to the place that makes it the perfect theatre for the things that take place there: be it General de Foix’s slow and painful descent into death and all of the regret that accompanies him, or the fracturing of d’Artagnan and Constance’s relationship, or Porthos learning that the people he’d held in such high regard couldn’t trust him with information that would directly affect him, or that terrible, sinking moment when they ride in and Treville announces that he’s been sacked and for the first time it dawns on everybody just how serious things are, or even Athos and Treville commiserating on how their pasts have come to haunt them in 2.06.

It’s always a good sign when a story can make you look back on something familiar in a new light—in this case, literally.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day Three: Favourite s2 episode

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Corresponding caps originally went with this one, but too many to post here.

2.07: _A Marriage of Inconvenience_

Let me count the ways:

10.  _Rochefort_

what’s worse: to die knowing that you matter, or to live and find out that you have been forgotten? monsters aren’t made out of suffering, not entirely—they are made when you realise that the world only cares so long as you’re useful; when you _know_ that pain is the currency that will buy you anything you want. even love.

9.  _Queen Anne_

you were born with a title and brought up to wear a crown; you have been told that your every decision will go down in history, indelible and monumental like few things are in this age. yet all it takes is a closed door to humiliate you. this world is built around you, but it is not designed for you.

8.  _Aramis_

some truths are worse than others; you can only deal with one at a time. the looking glass is clear and it shows you an entire universe, but you’re only looking for your reflection.

7.  _Sofia Martinez_

this, then, is the beauty and challenge of deception: truth and lies are nebulous things that blur into each other; more often than not, your weapons will be used against you. you have been brought here for a purpose, for a mission bigger than anything you’ve ever attempted before, but love complicates all things, as always. you should’ve known better.

6.  _Doctor Lemay_

you have your eyes, your mind, your skilled hands, a lifetime of experience and centuries of teaching at your disposal, and yet—in that quiet, shuddering (earth-shattering) moment of decision, it is her confidence in you that drives you to do what has to be done. you try not to wonder what the expression on her face would be had your move resulted in death. you’ve been there before. it isn’t a worthy thought. it isn’t.

5.  _Milady de Winter_

you have perfected survival into an art form; every life you’ve lived is a performance that owes itself to the one you lived just before that. you haven’t forgotten what you used to be—but your freedom is bigger than your heart. everything else can come afterwards.

4.  _d'Artagnan_

where you thought there was invincibility, there is only grief, terror, and a universe that deals in casual injustices. even you aren’t prepared to pay the price for the happiness you’d taken for granted. she’s paying so much more, and you didn’t even know.

3.  _Marguerite_

your anguish is a violent thing that reaches spindly fingers around your throat and _squeezes_. you are caught between love and condemnation and treason and disgrace but it’s the indifference that pierces you like a hook between your ribs. you are shattering in his arms, but his embrace hasn’t changed—you’ve always been invisible to him. you are left mourning an empty thing, and despair sweeps everything else away.

2.  _Constance Bonacieux_

your husband’s blood is drying on your hands, the air stings against the last gift he gave you, and the man who probably killed him trembles before you in sorrow and fear. you want to cry; you want to sink for a moment beneath the weight of this unfair world. but these bloody hands saved two lives today, and you will be brave before anything else. you hold him.

1\. there are no heroes.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day Five: Favourite OMG s2 moment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day Four was favourite s2 outfit, and since that post was mostly pics with very few words, meta or otherwise, I'm not posting it here. However, [here's the post](http://why-this-kolaveri-machi.tumblr.com/post/135320717804/themusketeersfest-2015-day) on my tumblr.

 

-

 

When Doctor Lemay is called in to attend to a grievously wounded Treville in 2.07. There are so many things happening here, all of them surprising and delightful. For one, Lemay himself could’ve so easily been a caricature—spouting painfully archaic and outdated theories of medicine and waving leeches around if somebody so much as sneezes, but from his very first appearance he comes across as someone who is rightfully proud of his learning and achievements, making swift and sure decisions based on the best of his knowledge, neither unnecessarily confrontational with those who oppose him nor swayed by them. That’s a great quality for any physician in any generation to have. But he also proves himself to be the ideal student—he’s not so vain that he’s not open to new ideas, or to not admit that his treatment may not have been the best choice. And in this scene, both these aspects come to the fore: he is both sure and decisive, yet he defers to Aramis’ superior experience when it came to extracting the bullet itself. In just a few short minutes, we get a picture of a complex, but essentially good hearted doctor.

Another quality common to great physicians and students (is there a difference between the two, really?): fantastic observational skills, and a willingness to put those observations together into a workable hypothesis, and experiment. Here, long before the germ theory of disease evolved, Lemay was already practicing some form of sterile operating procedure. It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t have the correct explanation for it— _yet_. It’s kind of how science evolves, and that was another lovely layer to his character.

And finally: that very human moment of uncertainty and hesitation before inserting the chest tube, and that shuddering, silent moment after the operation is over, when the adrenaline starts coming down and the enormity of what he has done and the millions of things that could’ve gone wrong crashing down on his shoulders. In both cases, he finds strength in others’ trust and faith in him, particularly Constance’s. He is transformed as he transforms others, and that is the hallmark of a wonderful character.

This little scene showcases of all these in a few deft strokes, and it is a _great_ moment.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day Six: Favourite s2 guest character(s)

**Lucie de Foix** is as much of a soldier as her brother and the men who come to rescue them: she is imprisoned but not broken; spirited but not reckless; loyal but not foolish; losing but never lost. She was swept into war as collateral and came out the other end a survivor, her brother’s lifeblood on her dress and feeling his heart fail under her fingertips. She seeks comfort in the arms of a man who thinks he is bigger than death, for a moment—and yet, she is the one comforting him, and the one to break away first. Soldiers never stay, and soldiers never look back.

-

From the day she was born, **Samara** has carried within her a faultline between two worlds: one that exists in second-hand memories and songs and lullabies and the gentle pressure of her mother’s hand around hers as she is taught to write Arabic, yet one that’s part of her as much as her skin and her beating heart; and another, cold and only getting colder, yet one that brought her up and clothed her and gave her both hurt and the weapons she needed to deal that hurt back. Some slowly fragment as their faultline widens; for Samara, who flings words like bullets and carries an entire legacy on her back without flinching, it has only formed mountains.

-

 **Emilie** has known all her life that she is especially blessed: not because of her visions, for she is merely a messenger, but because her faith is a pure, beautiful thing, unhindered by questions. Even saints have doubted, but she has never had to look far for simple, straightforward answers. Then the day comes when her whole world ends and becomes nothing _but_ questions: she has distilled a toxic truth from baseless lies, and poisoned not just herself but an entire following. An entire _army_. Yet when she reaches out to her wounded mother in both concern and a nascent forgiveness, she finds a new kind of faith: one that is strengthened by doubt, not defeated by it.

-

 **Marmion** knows better than most that death is an ugly, slow thing that is silent both when it comes and when it takes away. It leaves no dignity; it hollows out the soul long before the body succumbs, rotting piece by piece. It isn’t suited for grand theatre at all. Yet: he stages the agony his family went through on a grand scale, with the king himself as a player, because it _can’t_ be anything else. It can’t be _unfortunate_ , it can’t be happenstance, it can’t be one among a hundred deaths every day, three among a thousand gravemarkers. What they suffered has to _matter_. But in the end, Marmion holds his dead brother in his arms and realises that he has never been in control of this play at all.

-

 **Sofia Martinez** eschews the musket and the sword for the crossbow because precision and anonymity is her entire life; even in love she is quiet and razor-sharp, knowing exactly what to look for and how far to go. She is not arrogant enough to believe that she will win everytime, but even she couldn’t have imagined it ending like this: in the middle of the grandest thing she has ever attempted, thwarted and captured and dying an undignified death at the hands of a woman who might’ve been her in another life. The true magnitude of her actions is something that she is unaware of to her dying breath, but would continue to echo fear and uncertainty in the hearts of everyone she has met. This, then, is her true legacy.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day Seven: Series Two - missing scenes for every episode.

Aramis is standing in shirtsleeves and breeches in the drizzle, shivering a little, a bottle of wine in one hand. He doesn’t say anything when Porthos opens the door—just stands and stares like he just expects Porthos to _understand_ , and so Porthos stifles a yawn, opens the door wider, and silently invites him in. He manages to throw a towel on the mattress just before Aramis sits heavily on it, lank hair dripping rainwater between his feet.

Porthos waits a beat, then two, then three. “Good chat with the Cardinal, was it?”

Aramis smiles weakly. “Oh, you knew the man: never had much of a sense of humour.”

“Lead a regiment of soldiers that’s pretty much a joke, so I wouldn’t be too sure about that.”

This time Aramis actually chuckles, though his shoulders remain slumped, heavy with a kind of despair. “Think I could spend the night here? I doubt I will get any sleep on my own tonight.”

“Like you had to even _ask_.” Porthos rolls his eyes. “Dry yourself off first—I ain’t playing nursemaid when you catch a cold.”

Aramis has barely gotten to his feet when there’s a knock at the door and Athos enters, followed shortly by d’Artagnan. The four stare at each other for a few long seconds; Athos, predictably, is the first to regain his composure. “Ah, good,” he says, nodding to Aramis, “you’ve brought wine.”

“Now, wait a minute,” Porthos says, putting up a hand. “We’re not going to get drunk in the dead of the night—in _my_ room—without knowin’ what exactly we’re doing it _for_.” The other three have spent the night in his room on the occasions that they were especially troubled—Porthos does not begrudge them the comfort that they seek, and he is more than a little proud that he is able to offer that comfort to them. However, he’s never had all three come to him in the same night, and he’s worried.

“We’re drinking to my foolhardiness,” Aramis says sullenly.

“To a perilous future,” Athos says.

“To my stupidity,” d’Artagnan mutters, looking away.

Porthos frowns, but before he can say anything, they hear a low, mournful sound from outside. It’s followed a few seconds later by the clatter of several boots against the floor, and Porthos opens the door and grabs the first Musketeer he can reach among the several who are rushing by. “What the hell’s happening?”

de Kock blinks at him. “General de Foix just died,” he says. “He succumbed to the infection.”

Porthos releases him, a knot of unease tightening in his chest. He looks back toward his brothers. None of them can meet his eyes.

-

Twilight is just slanting into night, bringing with it a chill that seems to settle in d’Artagnan’s very bones. The other men who have been captured to be sold to the Spanish have already lapsed into exhausted slumber; d’Artagnan cannot see any of their guards around, but he doesn’t dare to make any moves now, when he is weaponless and manacled and the King is vulnerable. The hard ground is merciless on his bruised back and his head pounds viciously; he shifts again, trying to find a comfortable position, one ankle touching the King’s just to assure himself that he’s there.

“d’Artagnan?” Louis says sleepily.

d’Artagnan starts. “Your Majesty?”

“This is a terrible mess you’ve gotten me into,” Louis says. “When I bestowed your commission into my elite regiment, I was under the impression that you would be able to fight off three untrained assailants.”

d’Artagnan bites his tongue.

“However, you’ve proved yourself an honourable and brave man since,” Louis continues. “I must confess… even in this time of peril, I am comforted by your presence by my side.”

“I am only doing the duty of every Musketeer,” d’Artagnan says. “We are loyal and honourable over everything else.”

Louis chuckles quietly. “Honour… is a funny thing. ‘S what the Cardinal used to say. Never has had a place in the real world.”

d’Artagnan swallows. “He was mistaken,” he ventures.

“Perhaps. Or perhaps he was right. He was right in so many, many things, d’Artagnan. I miss him terribly.”

“Honour can only be given up, never taken away,” d’Artagnan says, staring sightlessly at the cloudless sky. “You can lose everything… and you can still be an honourable man.”

“Mmm.” Louis shifts restlessly and says in a voice that’s no more than an exhale, “I’m scared, d’Artagnan…”

“Go to sleep. I’ll be watching over you,” d’Artagnan says, but the King has already fallen asleep.

-

Constance slips into an empty antechamber at the first opportunity she can find. She settles at the nearest window, rests her head against the pane, and tucks her trembling hands between her knees. For several long minutes, it is as though she cannot catch her breath; she gasps and then gasps again, heaving at the end of each. She cannot help but think, over and over again, about what she almost did and what almost became of her; she is not a stranger to risk, but the betrayal in the Queen’s eyes, the rage in the King’s, and the blank impassivity in everybody else’s while she was dragged to her execution is more than she can bear. Sweat drips down her neck and her hands and feet tingle; there’s a rushing in her ears and the world appears to be fading at the edges—

“Constance? _Constance_.”

She is anchored by a warm hand on hers. She blinks and looks up to see Marguerite; she is holding a glass of water in one hand and Constance’s arm in the other.

“It’s all right,” Marguerite says, sitting down opposite her and offering her the glass. “Constance, it’s all right. It’s over.”

Constance nods, swallowing convulsively and accepting the glass in a trembling hand. “I’m fine,” she says. “I’m fine—”

“Oh, you’re better than that.” Marguerite leans forward, and there’s a shining admiration in her eyes where Constance is used to seeing derision and mistrust from the other ladies-in-waiting. “You were so brave—you saved more than one life today, Constance.”

Constance touches Marguerite’s knee. “I’m sorry. I should’ve told you what I was going to do—”

Marguerite shakes her head. “Never mind about that. The Dauphin is doing much better, and Doctor Lemay believes that he will make a full recovery without leeches. In fact, he cannot stop singing your praises. I managed to escape in the reprieve between his odes to your ingenuity, and, what did he call it? Your ‘naturally scientific mind’.” She winks. “I believe he’s smitten, Constance.”

Constance, through the panic and relief and budding tears, manages a most un-ladylike snort. Marguerite only smiles.

-

Milady carries with her a stolen name and a stolen dress; even her silly affectations before the King and Court are tricks she learned far, far too early in her life. She has entered the Palace and the King’s good graces through these falsities and a single-minded instinct for survival; however, it isn’t until she is truly, utterly alone for the first time that the magnitude of what she has achieved sinks in.

She laughs, collapsing back onto the bed and revelling in its clean warmth. Rich tapestries are draped in artistic disarray on the walls, each worth a hundred times more than everything she’d managed to scrape together in the past year. She’s just had a bath to clear the grime and filth off her body; the smell of scented oils clings to her like a second skin. She is already planning walks in the gardens and sampling in her mind the feasts that she’s only ever heard about. The King barely figures in her plans for the near-future: he is excitable, predictable, and easy to please.

It’s when the royal dressmaker comes in with fabrics and dresses and designs that Milady feels some forgotten part of her is woken. She dismisses the man’s ideas, matching colours and exotic dyes and patterns the likes of which she has never seen before. She gives explicit instructions on the design and cut of every single dress, and ordering another consignment of fabrics, more spectacular than the last.

She is not naïve enough to think that this arrangement would last forever; _hope_ isn’t what’s gotten her where she is. It doesn’t matter, though: she’s reinvented herself before, and she will do it again. For now, she is the little girl who dreamed of having the world.

-

d'Artagnan is an excellent horseman, but he really is terrible at driving a cart. Oh, there’s a perverse sort of expertise, to be sure, in the way he guides the vehicle over the most uneven parts of the road, and the regular irregularity of his lurches and turns. Athos almost wonders if he’s doing it on purpose. Whatever it is, it is only compounding the misery caused to muscles already strained from his near-flogging. d’Artagnan doesn’t seem uncomfortable, however; in fact, he appears to be humming to himself—some Gascon ditty that Athos has often heard when they’re taking care of their horses in the stables after a long ride.

Athos is about to say something suitably caustic when he recognises a familiar roadmarker. “Stop,” he says, sharply, “ _Stop_.”

He’s clambering out of the cart even before d’Artagnan’s brought the horse to a complete halt. He’s not even sure _why_ he’s running there—just knows that after all that he’s seen and remembered, it would be a travesty if he doesn’t remember this as well. The place where it all ended, and where he’d turned his back on his legacy forever. Where he’d—

\--it’s gone. The tree, it’s _gone_. There’s only a stump where it used to be.

“I guess somebody decided to cut it down,” d’Artagnan remarks unhelpfully from behind him.

“Nobody had the right—”

“It’s one less monument to mourn at, Athos,” d’Artagnan says quietly.

“I’m not mourning,” Athos says.

d’Artagnan says nothing. Athos heaves a deep breath and closes his eyes. In his mind’s eye he can only see the terrible scar around Anne’s neck, the glitter of angry desperation in her eyes. She has left her death behind; she has left _him_ behind in her quest for survival. Perhaps it is time that he does the same.

Athos turns and doesn’t look back. “We need to get back to Pinon before sundown,” he says. “And, d’Artagnan? I’m driving.”

d’Artagnan’s laughter cuts through the heavy air, sharp and clear.

-

“Aramis, can you believe that there was a time—not too long ago—that d’Artagnan thought his relationship with Constance was actually secret?”

“Not to mention scandalous, Porthos.”

“Highly inappropriate.”

“Frowned upon by all of society!”

“As evinced by all the unsurprised faces around us,” Athos says dryly.

“That’s our d’Artagnan and Constance—always bucking convention.”

“And common sense: usually at the same time.”

“The King is getting restless, gentlemen, and those two don’t seem to be breaking apart any time soon. What do you suggest, Athos?”

“That one of us go down there and remind them that the rest of the world exists, naturally.”

“Can’t do it—dislocated my shoulder.”

“I fell out of a window.”

“And I’m not Captain anymore.”

“… you’re all terrible. Just terrible.”

-

Marguerite reels through the corridors of the Palace, walking more by the power of instinct rather than eyesight; she is afraid to even blink, lest she start crying in front of _those who must not know! must not know!_ She is sure that at least a few people called her name as she passed them by; she doesn’t remember what she said to them, but hopes that she was convincing.

The first voice she stops at is Constance’s.

“Marguerite,” Constance is saying, “I’ve been assigned to show Princess Louise to her chambers; I believe the Dauphin has finished nursing…”

 _The Dauphin_. A hundred terrible implications crash upon her all at once; if Marguerite could spare the breath, she would scream. Instead she says, “I understand.”

Constance smiles, then grimaces. Marguerite blinks, and really _looks_ at the other woman: there’s a barely-healed cut on her lower lip, and a different kind of chill floods her veins. “Constance,” she says, one hand reaching to gently cup her chin, “what happened?”

Constance shakes her head. “Nothing I can’t handle.” She squeezes Marguerite’s hands briefly.  “I really have to go now, Marguerite.”

And she goes, leaving Marguerite bereft and cold and screaming.

-

After Treville tells him the truth, Porthos, absurdly enough, wants to say goodbye.

He’s not sure _why_. He left the Court when he felt he did not belong there anymore; after years in the infantry, being in the Musketeers is the closest he’s ever felt to purpose, and brotherhood. Now he is questioning everything all over again, and the anguish is almost more than he can bear— _almost_ , because the truth is bigger than any measure of pain.

He leaves Treville, weak and pained, in the infirmary, and searches out his brothers. Athos is back to brooding into a wine glass in some rundown tavern or the other; Porthos has neither the time nor energy to track him down. d’Artagnan has spent the better part of the week after Bonacieux’s funeral either angry or preoccupied; he barely talks to them outside of duty.

And Aramis—

Aramis is sitting at the mess table, meticulously cleaning his weapons. He tosses a quick grin at Porthos when he approaches, then returns his attention to the barrel that he’s rubbing down. Something sharp and bitter settles at the back of Porthos’ throat, tastes like resentment. Everything has changed. Nothing has changed.

“I’m leaving,” Porthos says. He can’t bring himself to say _goodbye_. Not yet.

Aramis puts down the gun. “A mission?”

“No, this is not Musketeer business.” (and isn’t _that_ the painful truth?)

Aramis looks concerned now; he gets up. “Porthos—”

“I’ll see you all in a few days. Hopefully.” With that, he starts towards the stables, begins preparing his horse.

A few minutes later, Aramis is in the stall next to him, preparing his own mount.

“No one ever goes alone, brother,” Aramis calls. “Not when they’re a Musketeer.”

Porthos swallows, closes his eyes.

-

d’Artagnan hurts so badly that for a few minutes he’s not sure where he is. Through the rush of blood in his ears he can hear the distant echo of Constance’s voice, screaming, and he holds onto that as an anchor and forces his eyes open. He rolls over and gets on his hands and knees with some effort. A pair of boots appear in his wavering field of vision, and then Athos is helping him to his feet and slinging one arm over his shoulder.

“Constance,” d’Artagnan says through swollen lips. “Saw Constance. And Aramis. We need to— _Athos_. We need to—”

“I know.” Athos leads them through the streets and up the stairs to his apartment in the city; d’Artagnan feels his strength return with every step. When Athos reaches to wipe his bloodied face with a wet cloth, d’Artagnan clutches his wrist in an iron grip.

“Constance—” he says.

“We will save her. And Aramis,” Athos says patiently. “Let me tend to your wounds first.”

“No, I mean.” d’Artagnan squeezes his eyes and opens them again, willing the throbbing to die down so that he can _think_. “I have a plan, Athos.”

Athos wipes the cloth over the cut on his forehead; d’Artagnan hisses. “Which is?”

“We don’t go in now. We wait till Constance is brought out tomorrow at dawn for—for the e-execution. We’ll both be there, in disguise. And j-just before the executioner… strikes, that’s when _we_ strike.”

Athos pauses, considers him seriously. “And you are willing to put Constance through the horror of a near-execution?”

Something knots painfully in d’Artagnan’s chest and strangles his voice. “Better than her execution.” He clears his throat. “That’s the only time she’ll be out of her cell and not very closely guarded. It’s our only chance.”

Athos looks at him for a few more seconds, searching, then nods. “I’ll talk to Treville about it. Now you rest.”

d’Artagnan lies back and closes his eyes. He can still hear her screaming.

-

On the night before d’Artagnan and Constance’s wedding, there’s a knock at Porthos’ door. He opens it and Athos and d’Artagnan troop in, the former holding a wine bottle.

“Couldn’t sleep?” Porthos asks, rubbing a tired hand across his eyes.

“We’re here because we know that you haven’t,” d’Artagnan says, pulling out three glasses and pouring wine into them.

Porthos lifts his glass in a brief salute. “To brotherhood.”

d’Artagnan raises his glass. “To new beginnings.”

Athos smiles. “May our follies bring us closer than take us apart.”

“Amen.”

Just as Porthos and d’Artagnan bring their glasses to their lips, they pause. Porthos frowns. “I take it this means that we are going after Aramis tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

“All right, then.”

**_Finis_ **


End file.
